Little London Pair

Round Barrow(s)

Little London Pair (Yatesbury 3 and 4/Cherhill 9 and 10) (Round Barrow(s)) on The Modern Antiquarian, the UK & Ireland's most popular megalithic community website. 4 images, plus information on many more ancient sites nearby and across the UK & Ireland.

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A Bronze Age bowl barrow, listed by Grinsell as Cherhill 10, "excavated" in 1849 by Merewether, who found a primary cremation deposit. Earlier digging in 1833 had uncovered two extended inhumations, presumably Saxon, accompanied by a knife, some beads, and a metal workbox with a chain. Prior to boundary changes, the barrow was listed as Yatesbury 4. It remains extant as an earthwork, though it is being ploughed.

During early August 1849, Dean Merewether had been "excavating" various sites locally, including Silbury Hill. Local tradition had spoken of the mounds on Yatesbury Field as having special significance to Silbury's shape and the Dean and his party decided to visit on the evening of August 4th.....

"Having obtained permission of the proprietor...we proceeded at as early an hour as our party could reach the spot...and with anticipations the most encouraging, as they [this barrow and SU 07 SE 10] were distinguished by traditions which ranked them highly in the estimation of the inhabitants. They had been at least 20 ft high; their bases were still of an extent to admit of such a proportinate height. henry Shergold, the man who had been employed to lower them, being fortunately within reach, was sent for, and gave us the following account as to the first of the two which we examined, beingthat towards Avebury. He said "He had cut it down a matter of 9ft, throwing the earth on the sides, sixteen years ago. there was a little box of metal 3 inches long; it had a lid at one end, and a chain fixed in the middle, and it had been fastened to the end where it opened; it was round. Abut a yard deep, there were three beads (terra cotta, one was produced), as big as his finger round; a knife fit to stick a pig, and two skeletons lying at full length". At a depth of 8ft in this barrow, we came to a large quantity of very black substance, like charcoal, or rather burnt straw; numerous bits of bone of the various kinds, fragments of pottery, &c, and a large cist containing a considerable quantity of burnt human bones."

A Bronze Age bowl barrow, listed by Grinsell as Cherhill 9, "excavated" in 1849 by Merewether. It contained a cremation in a tree-trunk coffin, accompanied by a bronze dagger. Prior to boundary changes, the barrow had been listed as Yatesbury 3. It remains an extant earthwork, though it is being ploughed.

('A': SU 07037099; 'B': SU 07067095) Tumuli (NR) (1)
Two bowl barrows opened by J Merewether in 1849 (2)
('A') Cherhill 9: 45 paces in diameter by 4 1/2ft high (3).
Primary (?) cremation in tree-trunk coffin containing bronze dagger with two rivets (2).
('B') Cherhill 10: 45 paces in diameter by 5ft high (3).
Primary (?) cremation. Two intrusive extended skeletons, one with knife, three earthenware beads, and a metal box with chain were discovered by a labourer (2) in 1833 (4) while lowering the barrow (Saxon ?) (3). (2-4)
"A": A bowl barrow up to 48.0m in diameter and 1.8m high. Under plough.
"B": A bowl barrow up to 38.0m in diameter and 1.7m high. Under plough.
Resurveyed at 1:2500. (5) The Bronze Age bowl barrows described by the previous authorities were visible as earthworks and mapped from aerial photographs (7). By 1971 the barrows were under plough (8). NB these two barrows have now been recorded separately. This record deals only with barrow "A" (above). For details of barrow "B", see SU 07 SE 105. An Early Bronze Age bowl barrow opened by J Merewether (his barrow 18) on the evening of August 4th 1849, and continued in his absence the following day. The barrow was subsequently numbered Yatesbury 3 (by Goddard,among others) and more recently as Cherhill 9. Merewether was also excavating Silbury Hill on August 4th. The bronze blade, though lost, was classified (on the basis of Merewether's drawing) as a flat riveted knife-dagger of Early Bronze Age date by Gerloff. (1-9)

During early August 1849, Dean Merewether had been "excavating" various sites locally, including Silbury Hill. Local tradition had spoken of the mounds on Yatesbury Field as having special significance to Silbury's shape and the Dean and his party decided to visit on the evening of August 4th.....

"The closeness of the soil...and the depth to which we had to descend, occupied more thanusually our time, and the evening was far spent before we had reached such a depth...as to satisfy our curiosity; but the next day, on which we did not proceed to Yatesbury...the men, under the superintendence of Mr Money Kyrle, came to a layer of the black substance, burnt straw apparently, and below that to a most curious deposit, a cist, at the depth of 8 ft., formed at the level of the adjoining land, containing an unusual quantity of burnt human bones. These had been deposited in the hollow of a tree, and a piece of the cleft wood, the side of the tree, had been placed over it. From the peculiar clayey and damp quality of the earth, it was so greatly decayed, that ot might be difficult to determine its former substance, although it appeared by the remains of fibres, and lines of the grain of the wood, to have been oak; the wood was 4 ft long by [2.5] broad and 18 inches thick, being reduced in places by compression. About the middle of this, on the apex of the mass of bones, and beneath the wooden cover, lay a bronze blade of a hunting spear [the knife dagger]; the two rivets which had fixed it to its staff remained in their respective holes, but the metal, from the extreme moisture of the situation, had become oxidised throughout, and when dried extremely brittle and friable; it was [4.125] inches in length, and [1.5] inch in breadth at the broadest part."